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Family Aid 2020
   Vol. 19 No. 57
Monday August 10, 2020
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If you have any words you’d like to share, any of your own playlists you’d like us to help distribute, or other content that has helped you navigate this difficult time, please share them with us. Air Cargo News FlyingTypers hopes to be like an online hearth for our cargo family. #AirCargoCoronaContent

Pharma Readies Vaccine Solution

     Workers in the fields of life sciences and transportation are laboring diligently to discover a COVID-19 vaccine and researching the means of moving that vaccine to restore the balance of normal life all over the world.


Voices Behind a Mask

     The word from our pharma sources is that “deadlines to save lives is uppermost as companies have committed vast resources to develop not only serums but also to secure the vials to carry the precious liquids to people everywhere.”
     So, in terms of getting ready to carry relief to billions in an extremely high-charged moment in time, the path to that long-awaited shot in the arm comes into sharper focus.
     The consensus is that it will require quite a bit of work and broad cooperation from everybody in all disciplines moving ahead.


Pharma Priority Right Now

     “There are many steps leading up to and advancing the distribution of a life-saving vaccine,” a pharma source told FlyingTypers.
     “First and foremost, we need the vaccine.
     “But before that happens, the process involves a lot of moving parts, including syringes, glass vials, stoppers, and other needed components as we move toward delivering the antidote.
     “The supply chain right now plays a vital role in this effort.”


16 Billion Plus Doses Needed

     Vast resources to find a vaccine for COVID-19 are being spent and receive most of the headlines, and heavyweights like Pfizer are investing heavily across the board. Others, including Moderna, are reportedly ‘betting the company’ on delivering a vaccine.
     In total, nine companies are racing to find a vaccine.


Pfizer Gets a Glass Company

     With the knowledge that the world could require more than 16 billion glass tubing vials and stoppers to carry the serum around the world, in late May Pfizer signed a long-term agreement with glass maker Corning Inc. to secure vast quantities of Valor Glass vials.
     Corning had received $204 million in U.S. government funding to expand production a day after the U.S. awarded $143 million to privately-held SiO2 Materials Science to boost the production of its vials and syringes.
     In an interview with Reuters, Pfizer said it is adding shifts to its plants, stockpiling its current drugs, and shifting production of drugs to outside contractors to free up its own manufacturing capacity to focus on the COVID-19 vaccine.


Delivering the Future World

     Now as the day for reckoning approaches, there are multiple teams across the world working on various forms of vaccines. It is likely that more than one company will be successful in developing the vaccine.
     Manufacturing will come from different countries. Likewise, the effort to immunize the global population.
     For example, these words from Harvard Business Review:
     “Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has been working since 2000 to address vaccine equity and helps vaccinate nearly half of the world’s children.
     “Over the last two decades it has supported 496 vaccine programs in the 73 poorest countries and helped supply them with 600 million vaccine doses every year.”


Coordination & Global Supply Chains

     “Global coordination will be required,” HBR said.
     “At least for the first eight to twelve months after the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, it is likely that there will be only a limited supply to meet global demand.
     “Consequently, there needs to be a global agreement on allocating stocks to countries around the world.”
     The report also emphasized the importance of establishing reliable supply chains.
     The report ended by saying, “the time to prepare for globally distributing a COVID-19 vaccine in a way that is effective and equitable is now.”


Anthony FauciThe Good Doctor

     Well-known spokesman for the CDC, Dr. Anthony Fauci has said:
     “Cost, distribution system, cold chain requirements, and delivery of widespread coverage are all potential constriction points in the eventual delivery of vaccines to individuals and communities.”


Extending Reach

     Experts believe two doses of vaccine will be needed. It is important to realize that the vaccine in a 2-dose delivery will be produced over a period of time to serve 8 billion people in the world.
     Of vital importance will be those millions of doses, delivered safely across the globe.
     The challenge will be in all phases to shorten the timeline for delivery as much as possible.
     A vaccine needs the of reaching all corners of the world in order to effectively combat the virus.

Seth Berkley, CEO Gavi


A Global Solution Required

     According to Seth Berkley, CEO of the aforementioned vaccine alliance, Gavi:
     “We have a global problem that requires a global solution.
     “The need here is the best science in the world.
     “We need the best manufacturing in the world. And obviously we are going to require industry from around the world to engage.
     “If we have anybody left over anywhere as a reservoir of virus, it not only threatens them, but threatens the world.”
     GAVI is working with distribution companies such as UPS to come up with solutions and is also looking into drone technology to deliver equipment.
     Although there is some question as to how this will play out, here in the U.S. President Trump has indicated under Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is charged with moving therapeutics and vaccine when that day arrives.


Military Takes Command?

     In the U.S. that could mean activating the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF).
     Under the CRAF proviso, which could include aircraft from several U.S. flags, UPS & FedEx and other integrators are lined up to go all out in the delivery of vaccines and therapeutics.
     In the case of UPS, Big Brown, we learn, is at work expanding reefer capacity in Louisville and Venlo, Netherlands.

Vaccine Vials

Indiana Growing More Than Corn

     DHL, this summer, opened a giant reefer masquerading as a warehouse that pharma dubs “a freezer farm” in Indianapolis.
     “The vaccine will not get to everywhere at once,” a pharma source said.
     “Our best estimates are that full global delivery coverage could take up to a year and a half.


Cargo In Cabin Second Life?

     While it can certainly be expected that the passenger business will continue to return slowly, that comeback in terms of timeline, sources say, could take as long as up to four years.
     Interestingly the continuation of cargo in cabin (CIC) flights once thought to be a short-term, distinctly cargo-invented phenomenon (as in “what do we do when the PPE shipments dry up?”) now looks like CIC will continue for at least another year, with consignments increased to FAK or whatever can be safely strapped in.
     Notable exception is Lufthansa, which according to a source will no longer continue with CIC.


A Time for Greatness

     Air cargo is entering into a defining moment. Our industry will be remembered and measured by our ability to deliver the biggest, most sought after consignments during this great global airlift.


Hey Friend, Do It Again

     If history proves one thing, it is that what happens once is oft repeated. It is that way in both war and peace.
     The Berlin Airlift of 1948 taught the world that an entire city population of two million-plus people could be supplied with everything from milk to coal to diapers for an entire year solely by air.
     Prior to that, in 1942 The China India Burma Hump flights moved AvGas, tires and ammunition from Assam, India, over the Himalayas—the tallest mount range in the world—to Kunming, China, to supply The Flying Tigers American AVG fighter pilots.
     Those day-and-night flights running 24/7 in and out of Tempelhof, Berlin, and the Curtiss Commando C46 movements to China against daunting odds inspired the formation of the modern air cargo business. Post WWII, former military pilots and others started up cargo airlines utilizing many of the same aircraft that had served in both theaters. Now as the moment of truth approaches, we are again on the doorstep of a mission that will surely see a concerned world turning to air cargo to deliver a vaccine and hope across the world.
     Imagine all those thousands of airplanes neatly parked in and out of hangars and up and down taxiways springing once more to life, answering the call.
     Imagine the eyes and ears of millions of people on earth looking skyward, inspired by this thing we call air cargo and what that might mean to our industry in years ahead.
     Hey friend, do it again!
Geoffrey


chuckles for August 9, 2020

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Pharma Readies Vaccine Solution

Prince Of The City


Pete Hamill Led a Thinking Life

     Pete Hamill has died.
     The reporter covered everything from boxing to politics and once wrote, “I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning.” In 2020 the City that he loved as much as he could weeps for the loss.
     To my mind, Pete was the greatest and most heartfelt chronicler of New York City life. He talked about and wrote the most revealing yet romantic tales during an era that gave us Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Norman Mailer.
     Hamill lived to be 85 before he fell down at home, broke a hip, and went into the hospital.
     But Hamill outlasted them all, including Frank Sinatra of whom he wrote a book titled Why Sinatra Matters.
     If you only read one Hamill, try that one.
     Pete also outlasted several New York newspapers for whom he worked, including The New York Herald Tribune, where I knew him.
     Along the way, the Brooklyn-born bard wrote column after column, where “he poured his soul into his words and his city,” as his last newspaper, the NY Daily News, wrote in a moving tribute last week.
 Pete Hamill    Hamill led the high life for sure, married a couple times and dated movie stars and until he went on the wagon in 1972, was part of a rat-pack of hard Irish drinkers that after deadline would gather in Bleeck’s located on 40th Street a couple doors away from the Herald Tribune presses.
     Bleeck’s overlooked the garage that housed the trucks that would speed down the block past the bar and the Metropolitan Opera House on the corner to deliver the Trib “hot off the press” to newsstands all over the city.
     I was a copy boy and all the Irish guys were belly up: Breslin, Hamill, Kelly, Ryan et al situated behind their Guinness Stouts and Bushmills.
     My job was to be mostly invisible and run between the joint and the presses to check on the issue and carry the bets the guys made on anything that moved: horses, baseball, football, you name it.
     Hamill was always the most interesting and inspirational because he took time to explain things.
     Breslin was tough, Walt Kelly was always pleasant, but Pete was like a big brother.
     He was quite direct and clear thinking, and he spoke in simple sentences.
     When, after he wrote his monumental autobiography A Drinking Life in 1994, somebody asked him how he managed to quit drinking cold turkey in 1972, he said simply:
     “I had no talent for it.”
     When I asked him how it was possible, despite the best efforts of Jock Whitney and a staff of writers like Walter Lippman and the aforementioned Irish crew, that The New York Herald Tribune folded, Pete simply said the pressman’s union finally put the paper under.
     “They didn’t care what they printed, be it the Tribune or birthday cards.
     “It was always about money, period.”
     To this day every time a newspaper is on the rocks, I recall Pete’s words.
     Today, sitting in extended quarantine, I have been writing and thinking a lot, as I guess others have as well.
     The digital age has made it possible to keep up with the news for those of us who still like to “read all about it,” as the paper boys used to yell out on the corner, by firing up the electronic edition on a Kindle or the desktop.
     Certainly, word that COVID-19 might live on newsprint for some hours (whether true or not) is also concerning at a time when you wonder if a head cold or allergies are a signal to the final curtain.
     So, I read digital everything, and we quarantine the incoming magazine subscriptions on the back porch for a day before bringing them inside.
     My Daily News arrives digitally as well.
     But I miss the touch and feel of the newspaper.
     We published Air Cargo News for 25 years as a tabloid newspaper at a press called Patent Trader up in Westchester, New York, about 45 minutes from New York City.

Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill Deadline Artists
     Hamill was like a poet . . . There is a great documentary of Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin on Home Box Office (HBO) titled
Deadline Artists.
     If Hamill or Breslin were writing, you bought the newspaper.
     Watch the real thing and realize that now there are none.
     Sixty second preview here.

     The press, owned by Gannett, only allowed us nobody publishers into their shop because we were pioneering the use of editorial and advertising color in 1976 and they were launching their own global daily, USA Today (1978), and wanted to teach their pressman how to correctly register color on newsprint.
     I recall I even got to yell “Stop the Press!” once and they actually did.
     But as mentioned, we stopped receiving our print edition of The Daily News to lessen the possibility of something jumping off a page and doing us in.
     Curiously, this morning when I woke up and walked outside for my sunup run, out of the blue neatly folded on our front porch was a copy of The New York Daily News.
     The headline ‘A Thinking Life’ was visible.
     I knew right away Pete was gone.
     Today the pages of the newspaper are filled with tributes and as I read through them, live newspaper in hand, it all comes back as the best way to “read all about it.”
     Thanks, Pete.
Geoffrey
August 6, 2020


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Ingo Zimmer.Tobi.ArethaSummer Cooler

We take a break as Summer 2020 is really in full bloom.
      In Frankfurt, ATC CEO Ingo Zimmer and his team of Dog Days bosses including (L) Tobi, the wonder dog and Aretha (r) are moving supplies as business is slowly winding itself back up to some kind off new normal.
     “We are ready,” Ingo assures. “ATC is full power.”
     Soon the kids will go back to school, while we cautiously pray and watch and wait for the vaccine.
     Everywhere in the northern climes it is hot.
     That is a good thing when you think the warm up is at least something normal for this time of year
     Here is Boz Scaggs with great summer cooler music amidst visions of the U.S. High Sierras.
     Stay safe. G

Boz Scaggs Sierra

If You Missed Any Of The Previous 3 Issues Of FlyingTypers
Access complete issue by clicking on issue icon or
Access specific articles by clicking on article title
FT072720
Vol. 19 No. 54
Flying Monkeys Might Save The World
Chuckles for July 27, 2020

FT072920
Vol. 19 No. 55
Vaccine Airlift Call Plan
Chuckles for July 29, 2020
U.S.-China Across The Great Divide

FT080320
Vol. 19 No. 56
Vaccines Can Get It On American
India China Boycott Takes Hold
Letters for August 3, 2020
Good Guy Retires In A Minute


Publisher-Geoffrey Arend • Managing Editor-Flossie Arend • Editor Emeritus-Richard Malkin
Film Editor-Ralph Arend • Special Assignments-Sabiha Arend, Emily Arend

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